Biography Of Wang Wei

Wang Wei (701-761), Chinese painter and poet, a figure of legendary stature; Wang is considered the founder of the pure landscape style of painting and was one of the masters of lyric verse in the Tang dynasty. He passed the advanced degree of the imperial examinations at the age of 21, and soon rose to high government office. Wang's poems, which are preserved, are admired for their sensitivity to nature. His work as an artist is known only in a few inadequate rubbings taken from stone engravings of his famous Wang-chuan hand scroll and in paraphrases of his paintings by later artists (such as the Landscape in the Academy of Arts, Honolulu, Hawaii). Most information about his significance as a painter comes from literary sources. He is believed to have been the first painter to treat landscape as an evocation of nature rather than as a vehicle for colourful, artificial decorations, which was the accepted manner of his day. He regarded landscape painting as an intimate communion with nature and is credited with the statement, “When you paint a landscape, it is more important to use your instinct than your brush”. Wang is also credited with several farreaching technical innovations—notably, the monochromatic ink style, which depended for its effect solely on a stringent and expressive use of black or grey ink washes and multiple small brushstrokes. During the rebellion of An Lushan in 756, Wang was captured and taken to the rebel capital Luoyang; he was spared after its recapture because of a loyalist poem he had written while a prisoner. Wang was considered by later Chinese art historians to be the founder of the Southern school of Chinese art and became the model for the later literati (wen-jen) artist, or unworldly poet-painter.